Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur - Significance

The ruling represented a watershed for cases involving workplace discrimination on the basis of gender. Because different individuals were judged to be capable of working further into their pregnancies than the school board's maternity leave policy would allow, that policy was judged to be overbroad. By using this reasoning in reaching its decision, the Court established that all corporate maternity leave schemes, in order to be constitutional, must be formed so as to allow women to work as long, and to return to their jobs as soon, as they are medically fit to do so. This, in turn, meant the end of mandatory maternity leave policies.